“I’m quietly tenacious.” – Steve Zeller

My guest in this episode was Steve Zeller – a friend I met about four years ago when he and I worked together on a data center project at Donaldson Company. Besides being the Global Facilities Director at Donaldson, Steve is the founder and owner of Parley Lake Winery in Waconia Minnesota. My co-host is one of my oldest and best friends – Paul Kibbe. Paul and I started working together at the same company 28 years ago and we hit it off right away because as you’ll see, he has a great sense of humor.

In this episode we cover a lot of great topics including:

the difference between making wine and making beer

the University of Minnesota mafia (my words not Steve’s)

why “screw caps verses corks” was the toughest decision he’s had to make for the winery

and what happens to the juice from the grape stomping competitions that they have at the winery

We also talk about “ladybug taint” and what Steve would do if he had three arms.

As always, the podcast has bonus material not shown in the public access show and in this episode there are extra lightning round questions.

Please enjoy

PS. If you get a chance, leave some feedback in the comments below.

Listen to Episode #6: Steve Zeller and Paul Kibbe – The Art of Making and Selling Wine | The Extraordinary Friends Show

“Most things I do end up being the hard way.” – Roman Fraulini

My guest for this episode is my good friend Roman Fraulini. He’s a Director of IT but don’t worry – we don’t spend any time talking about his day job. Instead we talk about his life experiences outside of IT.

They include:

growing up in a REALLY small Northern Minnesota town

joining the Air Force

how the Air Force influences his management style and his personal life

what it’s like to be a father having grown up without a father

and his Italian citizenship

For me Roman is part Andrew Zimmern, part Glengarry Glen Ross, part Zagat’s travel guide, part Cliff Clavin , and part Bear Grylls. But my favorite thing about Roman is that he will always play along with any absurd conversation that I start. He’ll join in without missing a beat, and he is never the first to break character and start laughing, no matter how absurd it gets. You get a small glimpse of that in the very beginning of the show when I ask him about where he’s from.

My co-host for this episode is Norris Stenson, a great friend I’ve known for almost 30 years. If I’m going to a party and I know Norris is going to be there, he’s the guy that I’m looking forward to seeing most because he’s a great conversationalist and always adds good humor to any situation.

If you only have 5 minutes go minute mark 43 to hear Roman’s story about the German maid.

As always, the podcast has bonus material at the very end including extra lightning round questions, and some funny pre-show conversations that are not in the video.

Enjoy!

PS. If you get a chance, leave some feedback in the comments below.

Listen to Episode #5: Roman Fraulini and Norris Stenson – “There’s no crying in business” | The Extraordinary Friends Show